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Meat Cakes

A savory cake made from cooked meat, cracker crumbs, eggs, butter, onion, salt, and pepper, pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs lightly without separating them.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Add the cracker crumbs to the melted butter.

Make and cook the cakes

  1. Mix the eggs, butter, cracker crumbs, and chopped meat together.

  2. Form the mixture into flat cakes.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter or drippings until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them savory flavor.
Eggs
Bind the meat and crumbs together so the cakes hold their shape.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the cakes hold together while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until golden brown. The cakes are already cooked meat, so the goal is browning on the outside. Frying over moderate heat in enough fat builds color through the Maillard reaction while keeping the centers from drying out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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